Kingston Mayor Shayne Gallo, in dark glasses, talks with city Public Works Superintendent Michael Schupp on Wednesday next to the sinkhole outside Esposito’s Dry Cleaners on Frog Alley.
Paul Kirby — Daily Freeman

KINGSTON >> An underground sewer pipe break Wednesday morning on Broadway at Foxhall Avenue in Midtown dumped sewage into the basement of HealthAlliance Hospital’s Broadway Campus — the latest in a series of infrastructure problems plaguing Kingston.

The accident did not impact any patient rooms at the former Kingston Hospital, but an obstetrics clinic was forced to relocate.

Mayor Shayne Gallo said he probably will seek emergency contracts to replace 200 feet of sewer pipe at that location and to make repairs where a sinkhole has opened in the parking lot of Esposito’s Dry Cleaners at 25 Frog Alley. The sinkhole formed earlier this week near where a city stormwater pipe passes under the parking lot.

Gallo did not have cost estimates for the two projects but said he will seek state and federal aid for the work.

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Gallo said the Midtown and Frog Alley projects along with major work needed on Grand Street and at the corner of Washington and Lucas avenues could cost the city millions of dollars. And that’s on top of millions already dedicated to the sinkhole problem at Washington and Linderman avenues that’s been dogging the city for more than three years.

“I will follow up with elected officials from the state and federal level to impress upon them ... to step up and help your community,” Gallo said Wednesday morning while standing outside Esposito’s. “All of this has coalesced into a serious challenge for the city to fix these problems.”

Building in danger

Gallo said flooding at the Esposito’s site and the growing sinkhole there are threatening the building, which houses both a dry cleaner and a tuxedo rental shop.

City Public Works Superintendent Michael Schupp said Wednesday afternoon that workers outside Esposito’s discovered a 5-foot-long heating tank in the sinkhole. He said the tank, weighing about 500 pounds, had made its way from somewhere else to the Esposito’s property and plugged up the stormwater pipe. The tank is 15 inches in diameter, almost as wide as the pipe.

“It acted like a torpedo and then acted like a cork,” Schupp said.

City Engineer Ralph Swenson said the removal of the tank lessened the emergency but that repairs still must be done at the site.

The stormwater pipe at the Esposito’s also was affected by week’s heavy rain and the fact that water, which rushes through the underground system during bad weather, has to flow from a section that’s 50 inches in diameter to one that’s only 16 inches in diameter, Schupp said.

Complicating the needed repair at the site is the fact that the pipe runs under the building, causing water restriction flow as well.

“Whoever allowed them to build the building should have thought about that,” Schupp said. “They either missed it or ignored it. ... It is like a dam.”

Heavy rain to blame

Schupp said the sewage pipe on Broadway “was compromised” during a downpour on Tuesday night.

He said the pipe was plugged shortly after the break but that any more significant rain could push sewage outside it.

“It is getting through, but it is not a full pipe,” Schupp said. “It is restricted.”

In an email for the Freeman, HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley said the sewage spill damaged sheetrock and carpeting in the hospital’s basement and that the affected areas had been “professionally sanitized.”

“The space involved was primarily office space, and the OB (obstetrics) clinic run by The Institute for Family Health,” the company said. “The OB clinic has been temporarily relocated to the The Institute for Family Health’s Kingston Family Health Center located at 1 Family Practice Drive, Kingston.”

Some hospital staff members had to relocate within the Broadway building, the company said.

“Full reconstruction of the space will be initiated as soon as the city confirms completion of the necessary repairs,” the company said.

Owner at wit’s end

Peter Esposito — who owns the Frog Alley property, operates the tux shop and leases the dry cleaning space to a different operator — said Wednesday that he was at his wit’s end.

“My livelihood is at stake here,” he said. “I feel my business is about to take a drastic turn for the worse.”

Esposito said the building was constructed in the early 1970s, before his family purchased after that decade. It once housed an A&W restaurant, he said.

Esposito said he’s been spending much of this week cleaning up water that’s gotten into his building.

“I am spending every waking hour just trying to clean up each day,” Esposito said. “I have mold. ... Everything is deteriorating.”

Gallo said his adninistration “inherited [the stormwater pipe problem], and unfortunately, this property owner is in harm’s way.”

“The city will do everything it can to resolve it,” including perhaps relocating the pipe, the mayor said.

Esposito said he would be open to the city buying the property from him.

“I would pursue that,” he said. “Otherwise, I don’t know what other options I have.”

Swenson said it probably will be cheaper for the city to make repairs than buy the property.

About the Author

Paul Kirby is a reporter for the Freeman, covering Kingston politics. He has been at the Freeman since August 1996. Reach the author at pkirby@freemanonline.com
or follow Paul on Twitter: @PaulatFreeman.